Bluesbreakers: Derwood Andrews

UK punk’s cult hero returns with lap steel and a dose of the blues.

Old punks never die: they migrate to California. For anyone who remembers Bob ‘Derwood’ Andrews as the guitarist for Billy Idol’s mid-70s punk band Generation X, it’s somewhat incongruous to find him living in the wilderness of Yucca Valley, seven miles from the nearest town, beneath a heavy beard.

“When I moved out to America, I stopped
making music,” he recalls. “I wasn’t making any money, man. For two years, I
was a motorcycle messenger in LA, which is the worst job for death rates. I
bought this place 14 years ago. There’s been a whole fucking long and dusty
road.”